THE WHALE FISHERY. 67 



McCullock, ' and in 1790 France had about forty ships employed in the fishery. The Revolutionary 

 war destroyed every vestige of this rising trade. Since the peace the Government has made great 

 efforts for its renewal, but hitherto without success ; and it is singular, that with the exception of 

 an American house at Dunkirk, hardly any one has thought of sending out a ship from France.' 



"A PROSPEROUS PERIOD. In the year 1785 the English shipmasters began to discover the 

 haunts of the sperm whale, the principal object of pursuit, for we find that after they had been 

 out twelve months many vessels returned with from 20 to 80 tons of sperm oil each, so that in the 

 year 1786 we find 327 tons of sperm oil was brought to this country, and which sold for 43 per 

 ton. And the success which attended our whaling expeditions at this time was quite equal to 

 that which the American whalers met with. In 1786 the bounties were increased to 700 maxi- 

 mum and 300 minimum, which had the effect of increasing the perseverance and activity of our 

 whalers, for we now discover them staying out eighteen and even twenty-eight months, and 

 bringing home much larger quantities of sperm oil. During the year 1788 the ships that were 

 sent out were much increased in size, so that they were frequently of from 150 to 300 tons burden, 

 and they still continued, like the Americans, to fish on this side Gape Horn, taking the common 

 black, as well as the sperm whale, at such places as the Gulf of Guinea, coast of Brazil, Falkland 

 Islands, and, for sperm whales in particular, about the equinoctial line. But if the Americans had 

 been the first to establish the fishery on their own shores, and even throughout the North and 

 South Atlantic Oceans, it was the destiny of the mother country to enjoy the honor of opening the 

 invaluable sperm fisheries of the two Pacifies, the discovery of which formed an era in the com- 

 mercial history of this country. For not only was the sperm-whale fishery by this discovery 

 prodigiously increased, but other commercial advantages accrued from the whalers who resorted 

 to these seas opening a trade with the people who inhabited the extensive shores which bound 

 the enormous ocean."* 



"In the year 1789 a gentleman from Cape Cod, who had returned from service in the East 

 India Company, having seen sperm whales near Madagascar, communicated the fact to some of 

 the. Nantucket whalemen, who, profiting by the knowledge, in due time dispatched ships to that 

 coast, which proved to be a rich whaling ground."! 



The American whale fishery, just before the Revolutionary war, employed a total of not less 

 than 300 vessels of various kinds, with an aggregate burden of nearly 33,000 tons, and produced 

 about 45,000 barrels of spermaceti oil, 8,500 barrels of whale oil, and 75,000 pounds of whalebone 

 annually. By the year 1789 this large fleet had been reduced 'to about 130 sail of vessels, pro- 

 ducing annually scarcely 10,000 barrels of spermaceti oil and about 15,000 barrels of whale oil, 

 with a corresponding proportion of whalebone. 



THE BEGINNING OP THE PACIFIC SPERM-WHALE FISHERY. " In 1788," says Beale, " the grand 

 mercantile speculation of sending ships round Cape Horn into the Pacific, in order to extend the 

 sperm-whale fishery, was reserved for the bold and enterprising mind of Mr. Enderby, a London | 

 merchant and ship-owner, who fitted out, at a vast expense, the ship Amelia,! Captain Shields, 

 which sailed from England on the 1st of September, 1788, and returned on the 12th of March, 

 1790, making an absence of one-year and seven months, but bringing home the enormous cargo ) 

 of 139 tons of sperm oil, and likewise having the good fortune to receive 800 more by way of an 

 increased bounty in consequence of the peculiar nature of the expedition. The Amelia having 

 been the first ship of any country which had entered the Pacific in search of whales, her sue- 



* BEAL.E: op. tit., pp. 144-146. tScAMMON: Marine Mammalia, p. 209. 



} The Amelia was an English fitted ship, manned by the Nautucket colony of whalemen ; her first mate, Arehelus 

 Hammond, of Nantncket, killed the first sperm whale known to have been taken in the Pacific Ocean. 



